Customers, e.g., enterprise networks, often have multiple links to a wide area network (WAN). The multiple links may be privately held of managed by different service providers. Typically, when a customer has multiple links, one link is identified as a primary link and another links is identified as a backup link. The primary link is used to transmit data through a WAN whenever the primary link is available and performs as expected, and when the primary link is not available and/or does not perform as expected, the backup link is used.
The selection of a primary link, from among a plurality of links associated with a customer, generally involves creating probes, and sending probes on the plurality of links. The use of probes allows a customer to identify characteristics of the different links and, using the characteristics, the customer may identify a particular link for use as a primary link. Probes may include general probes and probes arranged to represent a particular flow.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, while a probe is arranged to represent a particular flow fairly closely, a probe typically does not accurately representation the particular flow. That is, while a probe sent on a link may be intended to represent an actual flow that is to be sent on the link, a probe generally is not an accurate representation of the actual flow. Thus, even when a primary link is selected because the use of a probe indicates a particular level of performance, because a probe may not be a wholly accurate representation of an actual flow, the level of performance achieved when an actual flow sent over the primary link may not be as expected.